Richard III

posted Mar 15, 2018, 4:33 PM by Viktor Zólyomi

Richard III, King of England during the infamous Wars of the Roses, lives on in popular culture thanks to the efforts of William Shakespeare. While the play documenting the controversial monarch's rise and subsequent fall paints him in a largely negative light, records in the Secret Library of the Real Illuminati indicate that the Shakespearean image of Richard III is incomplete.

After the Hundred Years' War, which proved to be a colossal failure both for the Real Illuminati and the Kingdom of England, two rival houses started a civil war over the English throne. On one side stood the House of Lancaster, whose symbol was a red rose, and opposing them stood the House of York, whose symbol was a white rose. The Real Illuminati watched the conflict with vested interest, knowing that if they could find a way to gain the favor of the winning side, they could finally regain their influence in the English Court. They were, however, in no position to offer any kind of support to either side, due to the fact that the Hundred Years' War had depleted their treasury. For this reason, when one of the claimants of the throne approached them, they welcomed the man with open arms.

That man was Richard of York, and he made the Real Illuminati an offer they could not afford to refuse. He would give the group a large loan with which they could get back in the saddle, and in exchange they would use all their influence to help Richard ascend the throne. The Real Illuminati of course accepted the offer, and got to work on pulling strings, bribing or intimidating key figures in both Houses, and assassinating those who could not be bought or scared.

By the time the Real Illuminati realized what kind of a man they were dealing with, it was too late for them to back out. When Richard had the Real Illuminati manipulate the English Parliament into declaring the sons of his deceased brother illegitimate, which immediately opened the way for him to the throne, the two young princes were imprisoned in the Tower of London where they eventually vanished without a trace. Richard was crowned King of England as Richard III, and when the Real Illuminati inquired as to what had happened to his nephews, he responded with a clear threat directed at the Real Illuminati as a whole, then went on to outline his plan for the rest of his rivals both within his own House and the House of Lancaster. Records in the Secret Library of the Real Illuminati do not go into a great deal of detail as to what exactly those plans were, but they clearly imply that Richard III had been a much bigger psychopath than William Shakespeare's play had suggested.

It is perhaps no surprise then that the Real Illuminati decided to switch sides. They used up all the money they had been given by Richard III to give their full support to Henry Tudor of House Lancaster. By the time Richard started to even suspect that his loyal supporters might have stabbed him in the back, he was already staring at Henry's army at Bosworth Field, and it's anyone's guess whether he truly understood why he perished in battle later that day.

Henry Tudor was crowned as Henry VII in 1485 and went on to marry Richard's niece Elizabeth, thereby uniting the Houses of Lancaster and York, and putting an end to the Wars of the Roses. The Real Illuminati stood firmly in his corner and, using funds he provided them with after his coronation, removed all obstacles from his path. They believed they had backed the right horse this time, and while the records in their Secret Library certainly paint Henry VII in a positive light, they also point out he had seen through the Real Illuminati and managed to keep them in check by cutting the source of their power: their funds.

Henry had a firm understanding of how much it cost his secretive allies to manipulate his opposition, and made sure to give them just enough money to get the job done, and nowhere near enough to allow them to grow. In essence, the Real Illuminati once again found themselves with an empty treasury. They did, however, have a plan to secure more money than they had ever seen. And so, even with an empty treasury, and even under the scrutiny of a clever English monarch, for the first time since the fall of Camelot they felt confident that they were on the right track to realize Alexander's ancient vision.

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